Mission, Values, Goals, Commitment

Mission

Creating an interactive community around filmmaking and leading the way towards an empathetic, homegrown, nonprofit business model for the film industry.

Values

TruthWe believe in creating art and telling stories that mirror the world and truthfully represent the experiences of all people.

EqualityWe believe that all people have equal inherent value. We believe that each person is the protagonist of their own story.

EmpathyWe believe that putting ourselves into the shoes of others leads to a level of understanding that facilitates equality.

OpportunityWe believe in providing opportunities for professional artists to share their gifts, opportunities for students to learn and connect, opportunities for marginalized voices to be heard, and opportunities for communities to deepen and strengthen their bonds.

ImaginationWe believe in creating art and doing business in ways that reflect our values, and not taking for granted that the aspects of the industry that do not reflect our values are the way things always have to be. We will imagine and make new ways.

LoveThrough the commitment to truth, recognition of equality, fostering of empathy, creation of opportunity, and imagining new ways, we put more love in the world, leaving it better than when we entered it.

Goals

"It matters what stories we tell." - Angelina Burnett

The entertainment industry is one largely run by and for the profit of a few gatekeepers, mostly in Los Angeles and New York, in accordance with their values, their wants, and through their lens. But what if it wasn't? What if films were made of the stories inspired by a local community? What if we used storytelling to create empathy and understanding between people in our local and global communities? What if filmmaking was a tool to benefit a community? What if that was the point?

Folklight Film Club is born of that three year long thought experiment.

Folklight Film Club aims to create:

Empathy through the universal emotional experience made accessible in specific storytelling

Interchange and connection between artists and community members

Opportunities for meaningful quality time between people

Community outreach and giving

Partnerships with local people, businesses, and organizations

A sustainable business model for middle-class filmmaking

An educational program

A local film industry

Jobs

To that end:

MembershipWe create a membership experience inspired by the medium of film and the process of making films.

Storytelling & CollaborationWe make feature films in a collaborative process with our members, our local community, and our community of artists.

EducationWe teach the craft and business of filmmaking from the first word on the page through distribution, and we build this on a foundation of our values.

Diversity Commitment

Folklight Film Club's diversity commitment is to mirror the diversity of our nation, and just like our trailblazing new business model, we aim to be industry leaders in diversity as well, because…

We have the historically unprecedented opportunity in 2018 and beyond to mine the creative gems that people from every perspective and set of life experiences have to offer, and that in doing so, we can create the most honest and thought-provoking creative work.

We believe that comprehensive diversity is entertainment’s final frontier, and are genuinely excited to see what stories and characters come from a widely diverse collection of perspectives and life experiences working in every department, because that’s what makes the most creative and business sense in 2018 and beyond.

We believe that we are lucky to be the generation that has this opportunity, and we want to do the work that will leave a legacy of diversity-born innovation.

We understand that what serves the greater good is also what will deliver the highest quality, most innovative, and most authentic creative work to our community. The greater good and the demands of the marketplace are aligned.

Opportunity + Innovation = Success

To this end, we aim to utilize traditional hiring practices to ensure a diverse staff in all departments.

When traditional hiring practices fail to be avenues that bring diverse talent to us, we will seek diverse talent out.

This includes but is not limited to:

Specifically seeking out a diverse staff with the help of applicable unions and agencies.

Partnering with our industry’s unions, agencies, and diverse leaders in our community to best help us get the word out to diverse communities as we have staffing needs in all departments.

Partnering with diverse leaders and organizations in our community to hold orientations, meet-and-greets, and roundtable discussions.

Encouraging each team member to create and maintain the personal awareness necessary to build a diverse team.

Collaborating with creative companies and individuals who already share our mission, or who are willing to join our mission.

We acknowledge that we are the generation that will create avenues that will give us access to the diverse talent we need to be innovative now and relevant moving into the future. We know that this will sometimes mean hiring talent based in part on potential and not an established or extensive body of work, as opportunity for people of diverse backgrounds has not, historically, been equal. We are committed to continually assessing current talent acquisition methods, fine-tuning those methods, and to developing new ones, in the interest of bringing our members and fans the truthful creative work they crave.

The U.S. in Numbers

The United States is 51% female and 49% male.13.3% of Americans are foreign-born.19% of Americans have a disability.

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 estimate (based on the results of the 2010 Census) of America’s racial makeup is as follows:Non-Hispanic White, 62.2%Hispanic White, 15.3%Black or African American, 13.2%American Indian and Alaska Native, 1.2%Asian, 5.4%Native Hawaiian or other Pacific Islander, 0.2%

The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2014 estimate (based on the results of the 2010 Census) of America’s ethnic makeup is as follows:Hispanic, 17.4%Non-Hispanic, 82.6%

"Storytellers, let's make the world as we want it to be." - Angelina Burnett